This agreeable piece of tosh is exactly what you'd expect: 90 minutes of two pretty Hollywood B listers running around fighting witches with lots of mayhem, gore, dicing and slicing and the odd joke - perfect for a boozed up Friday night or a lazy Sunday afternoon. Jeremy Renner (your go to guy when you can't afford Daniel Craig or Matt Damon) is Hansel and Gemma Artenton his sister Gretel. After a quick summary of the fairytale story with the gingerbread house and some groovy historical engraving themed animated titles, we pretty much get down to the pair, now grown up and clad in leather (Artenton's about one size too small, as you'd expect), hunting witches in Medieval Europe. And that, really is pretty much it. The pair take on Famke Janssen's grand witch Muriel (Muriel? Soulds like someone's Great Aunt) and her cohorts who are assembling 12 children to try to perform some ceremony which will make them invulnerable, or something - well, does it actually matter? No-one cares - we just want to see the leather twins kill witches.
If you like action with lots of punching, kicking, blood and some over the top gore of the exploding heads and decapitations variety, then look no further, as Hansel and Gretel - Witch Hunters has plenty. After a while it gets a little repetitive but there's an undeniable visceral thrill about witches shinnying up trees and then being shot down by the twins' huge crossbows. In many ways it reminded me of that Hugh Jackman vehicle Van Helsing, except Renner hasn't got a mullet and this film is more content to just stick to what it does best. There's a fair amount of CGI but the film also has a pleasing amount of physical effects, including a troll (called Edward!) realised using good old fashion prosphetics and animatronics - and looking a hundred times more convincing than a CGI one as a consequence. The film give us a gloriously bonkers set piece too at a witches' gathering, with a wonderful array of imaginative creatures, including a siamese twin pairing that takes on Renner in the film's oddest fight.
In terms of performance all the principals know that acting is not required and instead produce easy going variations on their usual screen personas - Renner is laconic, Artenton kick ass and vaguely plummy, while Janssen channels a watered down version of Jean Grey and Xenia Onatopp. Peter Stormare gets to scowl as a nasty Sheriff for a while (until he comes to a gloriously gruesome end later on) while younger leads Thomas Mann as nerdy fanboy Ben and Pihla Viitala as white witch Mina try hard but get very little to do although Viitala has a quite lovely bottom when she gets her kit off for an hysterically unerotic sex scene in a water pool. Writer/Director Tommy Wirkola knows he isn't making a classic film here and is content to just give the target demographic what they want. Hansel and Gretel certainly isn't the sort of film you should rush out to watch but, if you're at a loose end and have a soft spot for that kind of hokey supernatural action movie that usually stars Kate Beckinsdale or Milla Jovovich, then this could be for you.
GK Rating: *** The Blog of Delights
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